How avoiding estate agents saves money selling property online

Estate agents account for over nine in ten property sales in the UK. But, as sellers become increasingly reluctant to pay huge fees to agents, so-called ‘for sale by owner’ websites are becoming increasingly popular in the UK.
These websites are for selling property online. As well as helping you to market your home to millions of potential buyers, they can also help you to save thousands in agent’s fees. This Is Money recently caught up with a couple who had saved thousands by using a private house sales website, as we see next.Couple save £7,500 by using private house sales websiteThis Is Money reports the story of Andrew McArdle and his partner Larissa Mitchell who recently sold their homes via a ‘for sale by owner’ website.
When he came to sell his home, Andrew questioned the worth of a traditional estate agent. He said: “Charging a percentage of the selling price is not justified at all, and I can’t believe that the high street estate agent has got away with charging these high commissions for so long.”
Instead, he used a private house sales website to list his home. This Is Money reports that Andrew sold his property in Harpenden, Hertfordshire for £315,000, after just 13 days of it being listed, and Larissa sold hers in neighbouring St Albans, for £335,000, after 17 days.
The couple say that if they had both sold their properties via high street estate agents, the selling fees would have been around £8,500. However, by using a private house sales website, the total cost was under £1,000.
Nick Marr, director of the Little House Company who sell property online said: “This is a great example of how vendors can sidestep traditional estate agents. People come to me and say ‘I’m selling my home but I don’t want to pay thousands of pounds to agents’. I point them in the direction of sites like ours which, as Andrew and Larissa’s case proves, let you sell your house quickly at a fraction of the cost.”
.Owners can now match the marketing that an estate agent undertakes but with low fixed costs.
Pricing a property is not rocket science, homeowners tend to regularly check house prices in their local areas and note what prices are being offered. Using house price websites can help and comparing like for like on the Internet helps. Its easy now to also get online valuation reports
-A private sale can be a slick no hassle experience by using a range of professional services that are now available from the better UK for sale by owner websites such as The Little House Company